Well, you can stop the bleeding only when you know where to apply band-aid. With first step taken by capturing data on where all the category is bleeding, balm can be applied to target areas to bring the shrink down.

In corporations quite often it is not possible to even start the healing process without getting a sign off from bottom to the top. Everyone has to know and acknowledge that they own part of the problem. When you start delving deeper, you will find that department lime Commercial and IT which apparently look remotely linked with Freshness issue, contributes a lot towards shrinkage. (Ask me – I’ll tell you how). Only this way it is possible to crack the issue. Next step would be to nominate someone who is now responsible for freshness or dump/shrink- end to end – period. It is also important that this freshness officer reports to the chief executive and is suitably empowered. It is pertinent to note here that this freshness executive is bound to ruffle many feathers. Organisations which thrive on polticking and back-biting shall ensure that this freshness officer is moved out of scene. So it is important to create safeguards in this regard. The scene now set for implementing and executing the crated agenda and thereafter measure and contol the losses. This approach shall sure work than bringing in cold chain and costly technologies. Good luck fresh produce retailers. You still have a long way to go….